


Edge Hill

by carnography (orphan_account)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/carnography
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most mornings, Leoben wakes before the sun. He likes to watch that dingy star climb over the horizon; he likes how the sunlight stretches across the ground. Reaching. Slowly.</p><p>(Season 3, Occupation arc)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edge Hill

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Gold and the Grey](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/99614) by sunshine_queen. 



Most mornings, Leoben wakes before the sun. He likes to watch that dingy star climb over the horizon; he likes how the sunlight stretches across the ground. Reaching. Slowly. Across the dirt and the rocks and the muddy tire tracks that look like lacerations in the early light.  
  
He likes the silence.  
  
He sees the Six every now and then—the Six named after the capital. Caprica. You can tell it's her by the way she walks—long, long steps — and by the hopeless sort of look that's settled over her eyes. She walks in pain; he knows, because he walks in it too.  
  
 _Love is pain. Love is suffering._  
  
Kara. Kara Thrace. Your mother told you that suffering was good for the soul.  
  
Love is God.  
  
And to see the face of God is to know madness.  
  
They know madness, he and Caprica. The other models, even the other Sixes ... they don't appreciate the patterns; they don't appreciate the way that humans interact with God.  
  
 _This is not all that we are._  
  
He sees the way that she looks at the President. Gaius Baltar. The way she fingers the ends of his greasy, unkempt hair—the way she swallows when he swats her hand away. Her eyes dart to something safe. The cold, white bulkheads. Quickly. So that she won't cry, so that she can stare and recalibrate and encrypt all of her emotions, all of God's data, into something unrecognizable. Streams of registry keys, maybe.  
  
The other Sixes don't have to know.  
  
Caprica swallows and brings an elegant hand to her mouth, and lets her knuckles brush across her lips. She resists the temptation to bite down.  
  
The other Sixes don't have to know.  
  
He does. He sees. He knows.  
  
Because Kara kills him. Because he resists the temptation to kill her back.  
  
Ahead, there's a little girl tripping along in the mud—her hair curling around her like a halo. Gold against the grey. She's an angel, blazing with the light of God. She's like silk ribbon and she's running in a world that's like broken glass.  
  
She knows that suffering is good for the soul.  
  
Kara.  
  
Kasey.  
  
Caprica.  
  
All ribbons.  
  
The Six, the Six that suffers, lifts the toddler and holds her close. She walks with her long, long steps. He stops in front of her.  
  
"Good morning, Six,” he says pleasantly. "What do we have here?"  
  
"Good morning, Leoben," she replies, but he hardly hears.  
  
 _Kara. Kara. Kara. She looks like Kara. She looks like me. She looks like God. She's made of patterns. Adenine/Thymine hymns. Cytosine/Guanine streams._  
  
 _I can see._  
  
"I found her wandering around the camp this morning. I don't think she's old enough to know where she lives; I was taking her to Cottle."  
  
Leoben looks her over—assessing her smile, her dimples. Her large, brown eyes.  
  
"Is she hurt?" he asks.  
  
"No. I thought he might know her family."  
  
 _I know._  
  
"I know her family," Leoben says, suddenly remembering a woman with a radiant smile. She called to an angel mucking around in the grime. She hoisted her out, lifted her from under her arms—spread them out like wings and swung her around. "We installed a water line near her tent last week. Her name is Kacey."  
  
The girl looks up and smiles at him, and Leoben returns the gesture. "If you like, I could take her back to her mother," he offers.  
  
 _Kara._  
  
He's begging, but the Six doesn't have to know.  
  
He knows she's begging, too. They're all begging, praying for the moments that God reaches down and touches their forearms. Their lips. Their foreheads. Their hips.  
  
The sun is higher. He needs to return home with this little heart on his sleeve. He wants to be there when her mother wakes.  
  
Caprica spares a glance to the sky. She sees that the sun is higher, too. "That would be very kind, Leoben. Thank you," she says.  
  
He takes Kacey; she rests perfectly in his arms. With a simple nod, he turns and heads toward the looming detention center. It's easy to find—many use it as a compass. It's the largest building around; it’s always present in the background.  
  
"Say goodbye, Kacey", he murmurs to the girl. She smiles and swivels and waves.  
  
Without looking, he knows that the Six turns. That she'll walk the beaten path, trudging back toward _Colonial One_.  
  
She'll go back to Gaius Baltar—she'll go back to God—and she'll kiss his lips. She'll try to heal him with white pills and gentle touches.  
  
And she'll know—suffering is good for the soul.


End file.
